Successful Transitionsto College Through

First-Year Programs

SUMMER 2006 VOL. 8, NO. 3

Emerging trends and key debates in undergraduate education

A publication of the Association of American Colleges and UniversitiesA publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities

Successful Transitionsto College Through

First-Year Programs

2 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Published by theAssociation of American Colleges and Universities © 20061818 R Street, NW · Washington, DC 20009Tel. 202.387.3760 · www.aacu.org

ISSN: 1541-1389

Vice President for Communicationsand Public Affairs

Debra Humphreys

EditorShelley Johnson Carey

Associate EditorMichael Ferguson

Design & Production Darbi Bossman

Editorial Intern Katherine Faigen

Editorial Advisory BoardJames A. AndersonUniversity of Albany, SUNY

Randy BassGeorgetown University

David A. BerryCommunity College Humanities Association

Norman CoombsRochester Institute of Technology

Peter EwellNational Center for Higher Education Management Systems

Ann S. FerrenAmerican University in Bulgaria

Mildred GarcíaBerkeley College

Richard GuarasciWagner College

Elise B. JorgensCollege of Charleston

Adrianna J. KezarUniversity of Southern California

Ann LefflerUniversity of Maine

Donna MaedaOccidental College

David E. MaxwellDrake University

Catherine Hurt MiddlecampUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison

Chandra Talpade MohantyHamilton College

John P. NicholsSaint Joseph’s College

G. Roger SellMissouri State University

Joan StraumanisAntioch College

Beverly Daniel TatumSpelman College

From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

ANALYSIS

Fostering Student Learning and Success through First-Year ProgramsMary Stuart Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Creating Common Ground: Common Reading and the First Year of CollegeMichael Ferguson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

PRACTICE

Evaluating Quality of Engagement in Hampshire College’s First-Year PlanSteven Weisler and Carol Trosset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Frontiers of Science and the Core Curriculum of Columbia CollegeDarcy Kelley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

From “My Course” to “Our Program”: Collective Responsibility for First-Year Student SuccessScott Evenbeck and Sharon Hamilton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Why Teaching First-Year Students Is Rewarding for EveryoneCatherine F. Andersen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Intertwining College with Real Life: The Community College First-Year Experience Renee Cornell and Mary Lou Mosley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

RESEARCH

First-Year Seminars Increase Persistence and Retention:A Summary of the Evidence from How College Affects StudentsKathleen Goodman and Ernest T. Pascarella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

REALITY CHECK

My Son, the Reader: One Story of What Can Happen in the First Year of CollegeCheryl B. Torsney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

First-Year ReflectionsCarol Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Cover Illustration by Dave Cutler for peerReview.

Emerging trends and key debates in undergraduate education

SUMMER 2006 VOL. 8, NO. 3

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www.aacu.org/peerreview

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 3

“Give me one moment in time, when I’m more thanI thought I could be. When all of my dreams are aheartbeat away and the answers are all up to me.”

—Albert Hammond and John Bettis

These lyrics from “One Moment in Time,” a song that is often sung at

high school graduations, capture the optimistic spirit of the moment

when students stand at the end of their high school days and at the

beginning of their undergraduate path. However, students finishing

high school are often unprepared for the challenges of the college

classroom. According to AAC&U’s 2002 report, Greater Expectations:

A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College, as “colleges

admit many more students, the professors who teach them report

greater numbers underprepared for college work. The evidence sup-

ports these impressions. Less than one-half of high school graduates

complete even a minimally defined college preparatory curriculum in

high school, leaving colleges to remedy the educational gaps.”

As the parent of a student finishing high school this year, I

approached my work on this issue of Peer Review with personal

interest. My daughter Gillian’s senior year was filled with anxieties

and excitement about college choices and decisions. As she and I

visited a number of campuses, she began to define for herself the

best choice for her next academic destination. At one institution’s

prospective student day, a campus official advised students to

investigate and consider the three “P”s of each campus—the peo-

ple, the place, and the program. I found it interesting that as we

participated in subsequent visits, we heard quite a bit about the

place and the people on each campus, but most sessions did not go

over the various academic programs in depth. While learning

about the various options for room and board was of interest to us,

we knew that the ultimate decision on where to apply would be

based on the institution’s educational philosophy and program.

While on these campus visits, I was able to conduct an infor-

mal survey in which I questioned parents about their expectations

of their child’s college choice. I found in my small-scale study that

most parents’ top concern was that their child’s final school choice

be a good match. In addition, almost all of the parents with whom

I spoke wanted assurances that the appropriate academic measures

would be in place to support their child throughout their college

career—particularly during the first year.

Last fall, 263,710 first-year students entering 385 institutions

participated in the 2005 Freshman Survey—a project of the

Cooperative Institutional Research Program that is housed at the

Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. One section of the

survey asked students to predict their behavior while in college.

When students were asked to make their best guesses as to

whether they would earn at least a B average, 62 percent indicated

that there was a very good chance that they would achieve this

goal. However, only 32.5 percent of participants responded that

there was a very good chance that they would communicate regu-

larly with their professors. Clearly, there was a disconnect for many

of the students who had high academic objectives but did not see

frequent faculty interaction as a means to achieving these goals.

To provide students with guidance on how to take advantage of

their college learning resources and experience, AAC&U recently pro-

duced a student publication on making smart educational choices in

college. In the opening pages of his book Why Do I Have to Take this

Course?, AAC&U senior fellow Robert Shoenberg advises students

that “Making good choices as you begin your college experience

means facing seriously some questions you may not have thought

about much: ‘Why am I here?’ ‘Why am I willing to invest four years

of my time and a great deal of money in seeking a college degree?’

‘How do I want to be different at the end of my time in college?’”

For the past few years, first-year programs on college cam-

puses have helped students begin to answer the questions posed

by Shoenberg. These programs generally introduce students to

the institutions’ learning expectations and address other first-year

concerns, such as major selection, time management, and student

life issues. This edition of Peer Review features articles from a

range of institutions with programs that provide strategies for pos-

itive transitions into college for both traditional and nontraditional

students. As my daughter stands with her class of incoming stu-

dents this fall—each student making choices that will define his or

her academic undergraduate career—the opportunity for these

students to participate in first-year programs may make the differ-

ence between first-year floundering and a successful transition

into a college career that will provide students with the outcomes

they need to navigate a complex and challenging world.

—SHELLEY JOHNSON CAREY

4 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

EEducators with graying hair may recall their first college

years as a more Darwinian time. Many tell stories of being

asked during their opening collegiate convocation to “look

to the left and look to the right” and then recall being told

by the imposing dean that “one of these two classmates

will not be here this time next year,” as if that would indi-

cate a job well done by faculty. Thankfully, these stories

are largely the stuff of history. Today, faculty and staff at

most institutions take seriously their mandate to help first-

year students succeed, delivering on an implied moral

obligation to both challenge and support those to whom

they grant admission. But helping students to succeed can

be difficult. What do we know about learning that can

help students overcome these difficulties?

The Transition to Postsecondary Learning

Attention to the first year of college has increased signifi-

cantly since the early 1980s. The release of Involvement

in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American

Undergraduate Education, a report from the Study

Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American

Higher Education sponsored by the National Institute of

Education in 1984, focused attention, perhaps for the

first time on a national level, on the first-year experience.

It called for increasing student involvement in higher

education and it asserted that “college administrators

should reallocate faculty and other institutional resources

toward increased service to first and second year stu-

dents.” Many educators interested in the first year

applauded this recognition of the importance of the

beginning college experience. Since then, countless

students have benefited from this increased attention.

The first college year is not “grade 13.” Incoming

students, whether they come to college from high school

or from the world of work, enter a new culture. Consider

the college culture through an anthropologist’s lens. For

new students, college presents a foreign set of norms,

traditions, and rituals, and a new language and environ-

ment. The high school and the college educational cul-

tures are quite different. It is no surprise that student

transition is difficult as well. Making the transition from

being a high school student to being a successful college

student does not happen instantaneously, and it certainly

does not occur by simple osmosis. As college educators,

we must keep in mind that we chose higher education

for our life’s work at least in part because we were

comfortable in an academic environment. Many of our

students today are not. They will not become successful

college students simply by “being here.”

Student success requires intentional efforts by those

of us responsible for the academy. Higher education is not

unlike many other large and complex organizational sys-

tems. Fortune 500 companies invest significant time and

resources into management training for their new employ-

ees. All branches of the armed forces have extensive basic

training programs to produce competent soldiers. Why

should higher education be any different? We also need to

effectively assimilate new members into our complex

Fostering Student Learning and Successthrough First-Year Programs

By Mary Stuart Hunter, director of administration at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experienceand Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina—Columbia

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 5

organization. Should we not also provide

intentional programs to teach new students

how to be effective students and not leave

this important transition to serendipity?

From Retention to Student Learning

and Success

Institutions in all sectors of higher education

are attempting to increase student success by

focusing on student retention. External

demands and growing competition among

institutions are fueling the retention fire.

Institutions know that retention rates are

affected by the congruence of institutional

mission and student goals, so admissions offi-

cers are becoming intentional about commu-

nicating with prospective students in their

decision-making process. Student involve-

ment and connections to the campus com-

munity are factors positively correlated with

retention, so institutional initiatives are being

created to increase student involvement and

enhance feelings of community on campus.

The integration of academic learning and

daily life is known to positively affect reten-

tion, so campuses are forming partnerships to

increase opportunities for such integration.

Yet many in the academy find efforts

that focus on retention distasteful because

they see institutional mission as focused on

teaching and learning rather than reten-

tion and graduation rates. Some take sol-

ace in knowing that intentional admissions

policies, initiatives to enhance student

involvement, efforts to achieve strong

campus communities, and integrative

learning curricula are desirable in and of

themselves. The fact that student reten-

tion is a likely outcome of such initiatives

is a more palatable way to view retention.

More recently, attention has focused on

the simple, comprehensive, and fundamen-

tal concept of student learning: students

who learn are students who succeed.

Defining First-Year Student Success

Defining success can be an elusive proposi-

tion, and students, institutions, and external

agencies may all have different definitions.

There are certainly different perspectives.

So, success according to whom? The stu-

dent? The institution? External agencies?

Luckily, success can’t be defined or bench-

marked by any one single marker, so there

is likely some truth in all these definitions.

Success involves the whole student and is

multidimensional. It certainly goes beyond

cognitive or academic success alone.

Upcraft, Barefoot, and Gardner (2005)

suggest that first-year students succeed when

they make progress toward developing aca-

demic and intellectual competence, estab-

lishing and maintaining interpersonal rela-

tionships, exploring identity development,

deciding on a career and lifestyle, maintain-

ing personal health and wellness, developing

civic responsibility, considering the spiritual

dimensions of life, and dealing with diversity.

This is indeed a comprehensive definition.

New Student Orientation—TheNational Orientation Directors Association(NODA) provides education, leadership,and professional development in the fieldsof college student orientation, transition,and retention. www.nodaweb.org

First-Year Seminars—The NationalResource Center for the First-YearExperience and Students in Transitionprovides myriad resources on first-yearseminars. www.sc.edu/fye/resources/fyr

Residence Education—TheAssociation of College and UniversityHousing Officers-International(ACUHO-I) is the preeminent profes-sional association dedicated to supportingand promoting the collegiate residentialexperience. www.acuho-i.org

Academic Advising—The NationalAcademic Advising Association(NACADA) is an association of profes-sional advisers, counselors, faculty,administrators, and students working toenhance the educational development ofstudents. www.nacada.ksu.edu

Learning Communities—TheWashington Center at Evergreen StateCollege hosted the National LearningCommunities Project and still providesample resources via its Web site.www.evergreen.edu/washcenter

Summer Common ReadingPrograms—The National ResourceCenter for the First-Year Experienceand Students in Transition providesresources and Web links to informationon summer reading programs.www.sc.edu/fye/resources/fyr

Peer-Assisted Study—SupplementalInstruction is an academic assistance pro-gram in which students learn how tointegrate course content and study skillswhile working together in historically dif-ficult courses. www.umkc.edu/cad/SI

Undergraduate Research—The Winter2006 issue of Peer Review is an excellentresource on undergraduate researchinitiatives. www.aacu.org/peerreview

Resources for Institutional Initiatives

6 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

But if it is embraced as an acceptable defini-

tion without thought, it is little more than

words on a page. If, on the other hand, this

definition becomes a catalyst for discussion

and is examined in the context of an individ-

ual institution, then real change can be initi-

ated. Such a discussion should involve a

broad group of campus constituents, includ-

ing faculty, staff, and students, who together

wrestle with defining student success within

the framework of their own institutional mis-

sion. With a well-developed, broadly

accepted, and widely articulated definition of

first-year student success, institutions are

more likely to see their students succeed.

First-Year Experience Initiatives

Every student has a first-year experience,

whether it is an experience desired by

campus leadership or not. The term “first-

year experience,” as advocated by the

National Resource Center for the First-

Year Experience and Students in Transition

at the University of South Carolina,

describes a comprehensive and intentional

approach to the first college year. It com-

prises both curricular and cocurricular ini-

tiatives. It is the sum of all experiences stu-

dents have in their first year at college. The

“first-year experience” is far more than a

single event, program, or course.

Institutions that achieve excellence in

first-year student success employ a wide

variety of initiatives. Collectively and singu-

larly, these initiatives vary from campus to

campus because successful programs reflect

institutional mission, student demographics,

and campus culture. Programs and initia-

tives commonly considered to be a part of

an institution’s first-year experience efforts

include, but are certainly not limited to,

recruitment and admissions efforts; new stu-

dent orientation programs; welcome week

activities, rituals, and traditions; first-year,

summer, or common reading programs;

first-year seminars; academic advising; aca-

demic support centers; supplemental

instruction; undergraduate research initia-

tives; learning communities; service learn-

ing; and residence education initiatives.

A Campus-Wide Responsibility

Student learning and success is a campus-

wide responsibility. The days of leaving stu-

dents’ intellectual development to the fac-

ulty and everything else to student affairs

offices is long past—separating the head

from the heart and the rest of a student’s

being is impossible. The Association of

American Colleges and Universities’

Greater Expectations initiative recognizes

that the whole student is an intentional

learner who is empowered, informed,

responsible, and able to integrate learning.

Soon after the release of the Greater

Expectations report in 2002, the National

Association of Student Personnel

Administrators and the American College

Personnel Association released Learning

Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on

the Student Experience (2004). This docu-

ment calls for the collaboration of aca-

demic affairs and student affairs divisions

in developing the whole student and

asserts that the holistic development of the

student should be a primary concern.

For many years, well-meaning and

caring faculty and student affairs adminis-

trators developed programs and initiatives

aimed at easing the transition to college

and improving first-year students’ success.

Many of these varied efforts have yielded

impressive results. The assessment move-

ment in American higher education of the

past decade has generated significant infor-

mation on the outcomes of programs and

initiatives and has contributed to continu-

ing improvement and program refinement.

But something more is needed.

One welcomed aspect of our postmod-

ern world is that discrete boundaries are

blurred. Moving beyond isolated initiatives

is no longer an option; it is a necessity.

Campuses that truly value efforts to

improve student success are now taking a

broader and more comprehensive

approach to their first-year experience. On

these campuses, the first year serves as a

unifying, affirmative focus.

Resources for Educators

Most campuses have myriad resources to

support the first-year experience already in

place. Countless other resources are readily

available beyond the campus. Professional

organizations and disciplinary associations

provide conferences, academic periodicals,

and networking opportunities for faculty and

staff. Topics on the first college year are now

found on the agenda of meetings and in

publications in a wide variety of organiza-

tional settings. Developing a mechanism for

sharing such information across campus can

be a useful endeavor. National centers and

institutes also exist to provide research, pro-

fessional development, publications, and

networking for educators interested in the

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 7

first college year (see sidebar). Commercial

textbook and trade book publishers, software

developers, consultant and speaker bureaus,

and newsletter publishers also provide

resources for professors and instructors.

But looking beyond the campus is not

always necessary—many of the resources

that support efforts to improve the first-year

experience already exist on our own cam-

puses. Simply looking at these resources

from the perspective of the first-year experi-

ence reveals rich assets. Campus offices of

institutional research or campus-wide assess-

ment committees frequently have abundant

untapped information about first-year stu-

dents. Making use of information that already

exists can be a powerful first step toward

improving the first-year experience on cam-

pus. Campus teaching and learning centers

can support faculty and staff in their work.

Special programs can easily be developed

and delivered on first-year student character-

istics, learning approaches for first-year stu-

dents, and instructional delivery modes that

engage millennial students. Campus newslet-

ters and magazines aimed at faculty and staff

are excellent methods for communicating

valuable information on topics related to

first-year student success initiatives. Campus

leaders who encourage lifelong learning

among faculty and staff through professional

development activities can focus support of

such activities on the first college year.

Perhaps the most overlooked and

underappreciated resource available to us

are the students themselves. It is far too

common for campus officials to spend an

inordinate amount of time and energy devel-

oping strategies to improve the first college

year without ever asking for student involve-

ment. Not only can students provide valu-

able information to inform our work, but

they can also be highly effective partners in

the delivery of programs and services.

Realizing Our Institutional Potential

The first year underpins the entire under-

graduate experience. Attention to first-year

students and their transition to our institu-

tions is essential if we are to fulfill our obliga-

tion to our students and to realize our institu-

tional potential. We must be very intentional

and proactive in our efforts, and we must

incorporate ongoing and formative assess-

ment into our work. We must customize our

efforts to reflect our students, our institu-

tional mission, and our definition of first-year

student success. And our efforts must be

broad-based, coordinated, and inclusive of

the entire campus. We have definitely moved

beyond the “look to your right and look to

your left” approach of years gone by. If we

are to move our institutions and our students

to the next level, we must now look deeply

within and around our own campus. In part-

nership with the entire campus community,

our efforts will make our institutions better

places to work, live, and learn. ■

References

Association of American Colleges andUniversities. 2002. Greater expectations: Anew vision for learning as a nation goes tocollege. Washington, DC: Association ofAmerican Colleges and Universities.

Keeling, R., ed. 2004. Learning reconsidered: Acampus-wide focus on the student experi-ence. Washington, DC: NationalAssociation of Student PersonnelAdministrators and American CollegePersonnel Association.

Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence inAmerican Higher Education. 1984.Involvement in learning: Realizing thepotential of American undergraduate edu-cation. Washington, DC: U.S. Departmentof Education.

Upcraft, M. L., Gardner, J. N., Barefoot, B. O.,eds. 2005. Challenging and supporting thefirst-year student: A handbook for improv-ing the first year of college. San Francisco:John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

External Institutes and Centersfor First-Year Programs

The National Resource Center forthe First-Year Experience andStudents in Transition supports andadvances efforts to improve studentlearning and the transition into highereducation through its conferences,institutes, teleconferences andWebcasts, publications, Web resources,and research. www.sc.edu/fye

The Policy Center on the First Yearof College engages postsecondaryinstitutions in a model for voluntary,comprehensive self-study and develop-ment and implementation of an inten-tional action plan designed to enhancethe effectiveness of the first year.www.firstyear.org

The Higher Education ResearchInstitute at the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles serves as aninterdisciplinary center for research,evaluation, information, policy studies,and research training in postsecondaryeducation and is home of a forty-year-old longitudinal study of freshmancharacteristics and behaviors.www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri

The Center for the Study of HigherEducation at Penn State conductstheory-based research that informsefforts to improve higher education policyand practice. ww.ed.psu.edu/cshe

8 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

TThe practice of assigning incoming students “common

reading”—asking them to read the same book before

they arrive on campus—has gained popularity in recent

years as colleges and universities have sought new ways

to improve the first-year experience. Like similar public

reading initiatives sponsored by cities, libraries, and

television and radio shows, campus common reading

programs rest on a simple idea: that reading the same

book brings people closer together as a community by

creating common ground for discussion.

For the faculty and administrators who design

orientation activities and first-year programs, this

emphasis on building community has made common

reading especially appealing. Assigning a book during

the summer gives incoming students, who often come

from very different backgrounds, a shared experience.

At the same time, moderated discussions of the read-

ing can bring the diversity of student viewpoints to

the fore and provide an occasion for modeling the

intellectual engagement with different ideas that is

expected in college.

Yet although common reading programs share sim-

ilar educational goals, the kinds of practices developed

to support those goals vary widely from campus to cam-

pus. All students read the same book before arriving on

campus—then what? Which practices of common read-

ing programs are most effective? And what role does

common reading play in larger, systematic efforts to

create a unified experience for first-year students?

Key Elements of Common Reading Programs

A brief survey of campus Web sites shows that almost

all common reading programs have been integrated

into new-student orientations; most, in fact, focus pri-

marily or exclusively on the orientation period. Drawing

on students’ shared experience of the reading, these

programs aim to ease the transition to college.

Small-group discussion is the cornerstone of the

majority of common reading programs. At some point

during orientation, most campuses divide new students

into discussion groups, which typically are facilitated by

volunteer faculty or staff. The content of group discus-

sions depends upon the selected book, of course, but

often the campus committees responsible for book selec-

tion intentionally choose common readings that broach

issues they want to address during orientation. Many

campuses pick books that enable discussion of U.S. and

global diversity. For example, Albion College, according

to its Web site, uses common reading to “begin student

understanding of differences” and “provide an entry for

students into the ideas of global citizenship.” Other pop-

ular themes, like “rites of passage” or “fitting in,” are

chosen for their relevance to the period of transition in

which new college students find themselves.

Some campuses seek to enrich orientation discus-

sions by deepening students’ engagement with the read-

ing process during the summer. Temple University is one

of the many institutions that give students study ques-

tions to consider as they read. Other institutions, like

Creating Common Ground:Common Reading and the First Year of College

By Michael Ferguson, AAC&U senior staff writer and associate editor of Peer Review

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 9

Ball State University, host online forums

where students can begin discussion of the

reading before they arrive on campus. Some

schools encourage students to write about

the reading by holding a contest for the best

new student essay (as Northern Arizona

University does) or require students to write

an essay about the book for an introductory

course (as Otterbein College does).

Common reading programs also sup-

plement small-group discussions with other

orientation activities. Campuses sometimes

introduce new students to library research

by showing them how to locate resources

related to the common reading, its author,

and the issues it raises. Cultural events are

another feature of many programs: films,

performances, panel discussions, or exhibits

related to the book may be part of orienta-

tion or part of first-year cocurricular pro-

gramming. Author visits are particularly

popular as the “culminating event” of such

programming, and some schools make a

point of selecting a book written by a living

author who is willing to deliver a talk,

reading, or lecture series on campus.

In addition to contributing to a sense

of campus community, such orientation

activities can communicate valuable mes-

sages to new students. According to Jodi

Levine Laufgraben, associate vice provost

at Temple University and author of

Common Reading Programs: Going

Beyond the Book (a monograph published

this year by the National Resource Center

for the First-Year Experience and Students

in Transition), well-planned common read-

ing programs signal “the importance of

reading in college” and of “discussion and

respect for diverse viewpoints.” More

broadly, she says, activities like small-group

discussion satisfy “the desire to have an

academic component to orientation,”

which often otherwise focuses exclusively

on student life. In this sense, common

reading programs—even when they exist

solely as a part of orientation—can give

students an early taste of academic life and

set the tone for the first year of college.

From Orientation to the First Year

Campus common reading programs diverge

significantly in their approach to the regular

academic year. Some programs conclude

entirely at the end of orientation, or offer

only a few final cocurricular events during

the fall, while others partially or fully inte-

grate the reading into the first year.

Among campuses that seek to continue

conversations about the reading beyond ori-

entation, most encourage but do not require

faculty to weave the reading into fall courses.

This approach, because it leaves decisions

about if and how a book will be used to indi-

vidual faculty members, has the advantage of

being easy to implement. It is most likely to

be effective when campuses offer discussion

guides or workshops to help faculty integrate

the common reading into their classes.

Baruch College, for example, provides fac-

ulty with a range of materials related to the

reading—including general study questions

as well as sample writing assignments, possi-

ble cross-curricular activities, and suggested

further reading.

The danger of relying upon individual

classes to extend discussion of the common

reading is that, from a student’s perspective,

such an approach may appear uncoordi-

nated. Colleen Boff, the librarian for

Bowling Green State University’s First-

Year Experience, notes that this approach

creates “potential for redundancy” between

classes; it also leaves open the possibility

that some students will never encounter

the reading again after orientation.

Such problems can be at least partially

addressed by improving communication

among faculty and with students. Bowling

Green’s common reading program thus is

developing an online forum to facilitate the

sharing of course materials related to the

reading and make faculty more aware of

what their colleagues are doing in the class-

room. Other programs are helping students

make informed course selections by pub-

lishing lists of courses that feature further

discussion either of the common reading

itself or of the social, political, and cultural

issues it raises.

A few programs ensure that students

will have a coherent experience of the read-

ing by tying the selected book to a rotating

first-year theme. At LaGuardia Community

College, for example, students last year

read Art Spiegelman’s Maus—a graphic

novel that deals with the Holocaust and

memory—as part of their exploration of

“Rescue and Recovery.” This theme, in

turn, permeated many aspects of the first

year, from selected courses that incorpo-

rated the reading to cocurricular events

that examined topics such as genocide and

human rights. (The extensive online

resources that LaGuardia developed to sup-

port activities related to the reading can be

viewed at www.lagcc.cuny.edu/maus.)

10 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Otterbein College, another school that

links the common reading to an annual

theme, has taken this approach further by

fully integrating the book into required

first-year courses. Such integration of the

common reading into the curriculum pres-

ents challenges. Kate Porubcansky, who

directs the Center for Student Involvement

at Otterbein College, notes that “full cam-

pus buy-in” is essential if a single book is to

be used extensively throughout the first

year. And the selection of the book, which

always must be done carefully, then

becomes even more important: in addition

to providing a compelling theme that can

sustain discussion for a full year, the book

must be “challenging but not overwhelm-

ing” and must lend itself to discussion in

different disciplinary contexts, says

Porubcansky. At Otterbein, where discus-

sion of the reading occurs throughout the

school’s highly interdisciplinary core cur-

riculum, the chosen book must also pro-

voke the kind of integrative learning that

will enable students to make connections

across courses.

What Works?

A common reading program such as the

one developed by Otterbein College obvi-

ously serves very different purposes than a

program that is limited to orientation

week, and what makes a common reading

program effective will vary with individual

campus goals. Programs that are purpose-

ful in developing activities that advance

their specific aims for common reading

are most likely to engage students in

meaningful ways.

For programs that focus on orientation

activities, the greatest challenge may be

clearly communicating the purposes of

common reading to students. Programs

that end when orientation ends risk leaving

some students wondering why they were

assigned the reading in the first place—

especially if activities related to the com-

mon reading seem only incidental or

“tacked on” to orientation. Connecting

small-group discussion with larger campus

events and linking the selected book’s

themes to the campus’s academic mission

are ways of making common reading seem

more relevant to students.

Programs that continue conversations

about a common reading for an entire year,

meanwhile, must be creative in developing

strategies to sustain student interest. At

their best, these kinds of programs—

because they compel students to consider

the same reading from different perspec-

tives and through multiple lenses—can

help students understand the interdiscipli-

narity and integration that are at the heart

of liberal learning.

Common readings programs of all

types are helping bridge divides on cam-

pus: between disciplines, between student

life and academic affairs, between the ori-

entation period and the first semester.

Although some critics might lament that

the growth of common reading programs

has coincided with a decline of reading in

general, many campuses are finding that

these programs offer a practical way both

of promoting reading as a shared intellec-

tual experience and of enhancing the first

year of college. ■

What Students AreReading This Summer A Selection of 2006 Common Books

■ Caucasia, by Danzy Senna (JamesMadison University)

■ Confluence: A River, the Environment,Politics, and the Fate of All Humanity,by Nathaniel Tripp (Albion College)

■ The Curious Incident of the Dog in theNight-Time, by Mark Haddon(Northern Arizona University)

■ Freakonomics: A Rogue EconomistExplores the Hidden Side of Everything,by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner (Appalachian State University)

■ The Great Gatsby, by F. ScottFitzgerald (Cornell University)

■ The Inextinguishable Symphony: ATrue Story of Music and Love in NaziGermany, by Martin Goldsmith(Otterbein College)

■ Into the Forest, by Jean Hegland(Bowling Green State University)

■ An Island Out of Time: A Memoir ofSmith Island in the Chesapeake, byTom Horton (Goucher College)

■ The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri(University of North Carolina atChapel Hill)

■ Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) GettingBy in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich(City University of New York–LaGuardia Community College)

■ 1984, by George Orwell (City Universityof New York–Baruch College)

■ Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child toMiddle-Class American, by Jean-RobertCadet (Northern Kentucky University)

■ The Things They Carried, by TimO’Brien (Bellevue Community College)

■ The Tortilla Curtain, by T. C. Boyle(California State University ChannelIslands)

■ When the Emperor Was Divine, byJulie Otsuka (Temple University)

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 11

IIn 2002, Hampshire College inaugurated a new first-

year plan that incorporates small, adviser-taught tutori-

als, a required eight-course load, a five-course distribu-

tion requirement, a first-year portfolio, and seven first-

year learning goals. The plan replaced an older curricu-

lum that combined coursework with independent proj-

ects distributed across the curriculum. The old curricu-

lum had no clearly articulated learning outcomes, no

year-end profiling of student work, and little overlap

between classroom experiences and advising.

Although the new plan represented a radical shift

for Hampshire, we regard it more as a change in our

methods than as departure from our mission. An inno-

vative college founded in the 1970s, Hampshire is a

testing ground for progressive ideas in American liberal

education. We are committed to interdisciplinary,

inquiry-based education and to forward-looking

approaches to pedagogy and curricula that are in tune

with emerging areas of knowledge. Our academic

structure maximizes student engagement—after com-

pleting the first year, one’s entire course of study is self-

designed in consultation with a faculty committee.

Students have enormous freedom to match coursework

to their interests. We encourage them to delve into

subjects they care about, and assume students will be

intensely self-motivated.

It became clear in the 1990s that we were not

consistently achieving these goals for the first year of

the Hampshire education. Persistence rates were

unacceptable, first-year students were insufficiently

engaged with our academic and social expectations, and

worries mounted about whether advising was well

integrated into academic life. Members of a first-year

task force boldly asked whether our first-year curricu-

lum was working well. Their inquiries and subsequent

proposals, developed over a two-year period, resulted

in Hampshire’s new first-year plan.

Systematic Assessment

A change of this magnitude demands a systematic

assessment. We developed an “assessment grid,” in

which first-year outcomes, program goals, implementa-

tions, measures, and targets were identified and linked.

For example, one intended outcome was an improved

graduation rate. An associated program goal was an

increase in academic engagement. The eight-course

requirement constituted one implementation intended

to achieve this goal; the relevant measures included the

average number of courses completed in the first year,

and our target was an average of seven courses per stu-

dent by the end of the inaugural year of the new plan.

These efforts led us to investigate how well we fos-

ter academic engagement among our students. We

employed the College Student Expectations

Questionnaire and the College Student Experiences

Questionnaire combined with a homegrown first-year

survey to measure student expectations and self-

reported patterns of engagement. We supplemented

Evaluating Quality of Engagement inHampshire College’s First-Year Plan

By Steven Weisler, dean of academic development, and Carol Trosset, director of institutional research, bothof Hampshire College

12 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

these instruments with direct measures of

engagement derived from transcript analy-

sis, course evaluations, assessments of aca-

demic progress, and patterns of distribu-

tion. Our guiding insight, that deeper

engagement in an integrated academic and

social environment leads to higher achieve-

ment and ultimately to lower attrition,

inclined us to base our evaluation paradigm

on quantitative measures of this sort.

By these measures, our first-year plan

was a substantial success. In its initial

year, the percentage of students success-

fully completing eight courses more than

doubled to 70 percent, and the percent-

age of students in academic difficulty at

the end of the first year fell by over 20

percent. All but six continuing students

began their concentrations “on time,” and

the distribution of first-year students

across the curriculum flattened out, with

many more students successfully complet-

ing courses in the cognitive and natural

sciences. Over the next few years, our six-

year graduation rate improved by almost

20 percent.

Still, other considerations suggested a

less rosy picture. Third-semester persist-

ence was essentially unchanged, and

although course completion was up, stu-

dents’ self-reported progress on

Hampshire’s learning goals was unchanged

from previous years. More disturbingly,

anecdotal evidence derived from hallway

conversations and opinion pieces in the

student newspaper indicated that while

the quantity of student engagement was

improving, the quality of that engagement

was not.

Quality of engagement refers not to

the extent that students are engaged with

their studies, but to the extent to which

they feel so engaged. This type of evalua-

tion requires supplementing standard

quantitative methods of analysis with quali-

tative methods. Triangulating measures of

course completion, good standing, and aca-

demic progress with data from student and

faculty focus groups, ethnographic inter-

views, and analysis of other qualitative

information (e.g., comments on course

evaluations or open-ended questionnaires),

fills in many important gaps in our analysis.

In addition to looking at the numbers, we

need to listen to the students. We illustrate

this approach by briefly discussing the

evaluation of two aspects of Hampshire’s

first-year program: distribution requirements

and the first-year tutorial.

Distribution Requirements

Since 2002, first-year students have been

required to complete one course in each of

Hampshire’s five “schools” (cognitive sci-

ences, humanities/arts/cultural studies, inter-

disciplinary arts, natural sciences, and social

sciences). Prior to this requirement, course-

taking patterns were heavily skewed across

schools. Under the new program, these pat-

terns have evened out, so that measures of

student behavior indicate equal engagement

across the curriculum. However, qualitative

inquiries indicate that many students remain

harshly critical of having to take courses in

areas in which they lack strong interest.

Our work reveals a significant tension

between Hampshire’s mantra, “learn what

you love,” and the equally important goal

of achieving a broad liberal arts education.

Student interviews show that while some

students find new interests by taking distri-

bution courses, others remain disengaged,

preferring to “learn what they already

love.” Students disconcertingly describe

such courses as “a waste of time,” or “totally

irrelevant to me,” even though they are

choosing from a great many alternative

courses within each interdisciplinary school.

Here is an illustrative interview excerpt in

which a first-year student comments on his

degree of effort in distribution courses

outside his area of interest:

I don’t work as hard. I feel poorly about

that. I don’t think it is fair to the profes-

sor, to the class, and to me because I do

enjoy learning. I do enjoy the work if I

can get into it. I think the entire stu-

dent body feels that way. If it is a good

class, if they are interested in it, and if

it is what they want to study, then they

will do it. If not, then—forget it. And it

shows.

There may be an interesting develop-

mental aspect of this phenomenon.

Interviews with Hampshire alumni indi-

cate that many recognize that what

seemed at the time to be an unnecessary

requirement turned out in hindsight to

represent a powerful learning experience.

Here is one such comment drawn from a

recent interview:

I was afraid of math; I was never good

at it in high school. I took a science

course to fill Hampshire’s distribution

requirement, and I did some math in

that course. It was hard, but I came

out of that experience a much

stronger learner and more confident

in my ability to do academic work.

I’ve sometimes thought since, maybe

I should have done more science.

Now I teach math, and I enjoy it.

It is important for the college to

address these aspects of student and

alumni culture and to explicate our

apparently contradictory messages (“be

broadly educated” and “create your own

education”). Hampshire is currently

involved in a systematic study of the

“open curriculum” funded by the Teagle

Foundation to try to better understand

the advantages and disadvantages of cur-

ricula without distribution requirements.

We hope to report on this work at a

future date.

First-Year Tutorials

Under the new first-year plan, every new

student is assigned to a tutorial—a first-

semester seminar taught by the student’s

adviser. Tutorials combine the general

goals of a first-year seminar with the

additional aim of integrating advising and

teaching. In many ways, the adoption

of the tutorial has been advanta-

geous. Advisees meet advisers in a

rich academic context, group advis-

ing promotes many efficiencies,

and the tutorial cohort creates a

peer network for first-year stu-

dents. Interestingly, students rate

tutorials ahead of other 100-level

courses in course evaluations on

measures of course excellence, the

professor’s excellence, and the

extent of learning that occurs.

Mean scores for first-year survey ques-

tions pertaining to advising have also

shown small but consistent improvement.

Once again, qualitative data indicate a

current of dissatisfaction that runs under-

neath these positive trends. The following

excerpt from interviews with first-year

students identifies one problem clearly:

Your adviser is really important. . . .

While I absolutely love my adviser

and think he is amazing and think

that he is very supportive, I think that

it would be much more beneficial to

me if I had an adviser in the School

of SS [Social Science] who knew a lot

about law schools and knew a lot

about exactly what courses I need to

be taking.

Although the college assigns first-

year students to general advisers who

guide them through the general educa-

tion requirements of the first-year pro-

gram, our work reveals a trend at

Hampshire in which students increas-

ingly want to be assigned advisers in

their presumed area of concentration at

the earliest opportunity. Once revealed,

it was easy to improve the situation. By

developing a tutorial registration algo-

rithm that maximizes student preference

for as many students as possible, under-

enrolling each tutorial by two students,

and allowing tutorials to participate in

the online add/drop system, we have

greatly increased the odds that first-year

students will enroll in the tutorial of

their choice.

Lessons Learned

Our evaluation of Hampshire College’s

first-year plan suggests three conclusions.

First, quantitative methods that investi-

gate student engagement should be sup-

plemented by qualitative methods that

reveal how students experience involve-

ment in college life. Positive evidence

encoded in many standard measures of

success can mask important issues that

contextualize these outcomes. Second,

when we did this kind of mixed-method

research, we sometimes found that the

college is sending students inconsistent

messages. Improving teaching and learning

will require resolving these inconsistencies

to develop a more coherent institutional

position. Finally, we recognize that

when students select an institution,

they may not understand or agree with

all of the principles that shape its cur-

riculum and other aspects of student

life. Communicating these principles

clearly to students is an important

institutional responsibility and is

essential to providing a high-quality

education. ■

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 13

TThe usual approach to undergraduate science educa-

tion is to segregate “science” from “non-science” stu-

dents. Actual and potential science majors are pushed

into departmental programs to fulfill major require-

ments; non-science students make do with distribution

requirements. Recently, however, science educators

have envisaged courses that transcend traditional disci-

plinary boundaries. For example, the National

Research Council’s report Bio2010 (2003) imagines “a

truly interdisciplinary course used as an introductory

first-year seminar with relatively few details and no

prerequisites.” This course is designed to “introduce

students to many disciplines in their first year, and to

hold the interest of first-year students who are taking

disciplinary prerequisites.” Similarly, the National

Research Council’s 1999 Transforming Undergraduate

Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and

Technology promotes introductory courses that explore

fundamental and unifying concepts and emphasize

evolving processes of scientific thought and inquiry.

Most students (“science” and “non-science” alike)

enter college having written essays and poems, solved

equations, and analyzed historical issues. Very few have

actually planned, carried out, and analyzed an actual

scientific experiment, in part because what scientists

really do is not included in most secondary school cur-

ricula. Students view science as a collage of facts to be

regurgitated on demand. In reality, however, science is

a way of thinking about and making sense of the world.

Real science is not what is known but what is to be

known. In addition, while the push to interdisciplinary

science courses is usually focused on students already

within a science trajectory, This perspective is equally

important for new students who do not see themselves

as connected to science. Frontiers of Science—

Columbia’s new core curriculum science course—is

designed to address both of these issues.

The Challenges of Connecting All Students

to Science

Founded in 1754 as King’s College, Columbia College

is an undergraduate liberal arts college of Columbia

University. In 1919, the college began the development

of a set of courses that introduces students to essential

ideas of music, art, literature, philosophy, and political

thought. To foster active intellectual engagement,

courses in the core curriculum are taught as small sem-

inars beginning in the first year. As of 2003, the core

(specific courses taken by all students) included

Contemporary Civilization, Literature Humanities, Art

Humanities, Music Humanities, and University

Writing. The core curriculum is the hallmark of a

Columbia College education.

From the inception of the core, the omission of a

science course in the curriculum evoked comment. In

1933, Herbert Hawkes, then dean of the college,

Frontiers of Science and the CoreCurriculum of Columbia College

By Darcy Kelley, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Biological Sciences, codirector of Frontiersof Science, Columbia University

14 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 15

stated, “Ever since the course in

Contemporary Civilization was offered

fourteen years ago, the perennial question

of the relation of the sciences to this kind

of course has been discussed.” It took

close to ninety years, however, for those

debates to bear fruit. Frontiers of Science

entered the core curriculum as a five-year

experiment in fall 2004.

Why did it take so long? Dean Hawkes

outlined several goals for a core science

course in the 1933 annual report: “Meeting

the need of all students for a fund of

knowledge and a set of intellectual tools

that would be applicable in all of their

thinking and that would better them as

persons” (58). Faculty fights over the new

science course erupted right away.

Content was a major issue:

What constitutes a real core

of knowledge in the sci-

ences? Which areas should

be included? What about

mathematics? Should “sci-

ence” students be educated

together with “non-science” students?

Since agreement on content could not be

reached, the faculty put together a roster

of four courses, half from the physical sci-

ences and half from the life sciences. All

were intended for non-science students,

none were required, and all courses

abruptly ended in 1941 as the war began.

The dormant issue of science in the

core arose again after the war ended. From

discussions, it became clear to then-

College Dean Harry Carman that even

though the course would be approved,

most of the science faculty strongly

opposed it and, since they would be

responsible, the original vision could not

work. The recommendation reverted to a

version—remarkably similar to the 1930s

sequence—to be offered at “the earliest

opportunity”; that opportunity never arose

(127). The science requirement eventually

returned to a distributional form: two sci-

ence courses in one department (for

depth) and one in another (for breadth).

Since that time, Columbia’s small, distin-

guished science departments have focused

on teaching large service courses and

smaller courses to their own majors. Many

departments did not even attempt to

mount a third, stand-alone course that

could fulfill the distribution requirement.

Breaking the Science Pyramid

If there is any place where adding science

to a general education requirement

should be feasible, it is Columbia, home

of the much-vaunted core curriculum.

Why was science left out? Why was (and

is) teaching a broad course in science so

hard? One factor was the general consen-

sus among the faculty about what a proper

science education should be, a consensus

adopted and reinforced by the profes-

sional schools, particularly medical

schools. This consensus has been most

vividly described by Princeton University

President Shirley Tilghman’s metaphor

comparing traditional training in science

to a pyramid. In this model, students must

complete a foundation of introductory

science courses before they can progress

to more specialized courses and more

engaging scientific questions.

Let’s say, for example, that a student

is interested in the way the brain han-

dles language. What must she do to take

a course on that subject? If she pursues

her interest via a biology perspective,

she must first take a year of chemistry,

then a year of introductory biology, an

introductory sequence in neuroscience,

and then, finally, she is allowed to enroll

in the course that interested

her in the first place.

However, that first year of

chemistry often discourages

all but the most determined,

which means our hypotheti-

cal student might never make

it to her original goal.

Suppose that we could break the

pyramid. Suppose that it were possible to

present the neurobiology of language in a

rigorous and insightful way along with

other topics at the frontiers of science:

global climate change, the origins of the

universe, quantum mechanics, molecular

motors. This attempt to “break the pyra-

mid” is a defining characteristic of

Frontiers of Science. It is at the heart of

faculty excitement about the course, but it

is also the aspect of the course that arouses

the strongest opposition from members of

the science faculty.

Steeped in the guild-like tradition of

the sequence of courses required to

become a physicist or a chemist or a biolo-

gist, many science faculty members think

that it is impossible to be both interesting

and rigorous in presenting difficult subjects

to entering students. Further, many view

the prospect of teaching outside of their

own disciplines (having a biologist teach

quantum mechanics or an astronomer

teach neuroscience) as either pointless or

extraordinarily difficult from the point of

view of faculty expertise. As a scientist

advances in training, his or her expertise

tends to become narrower and narrower.

For example, many astronomers, though

well versed in mathematics and physics,

have not taken a biology course since high

school.

What has changed recently is the

acceptance of the idea that, to be opti-

mally effective, scientists must acquire

cross-disciplinary skills. Nanoscience, the

realm of 10-9 m (which is on the scale of

atomic diameters), is a superb example of

a cross-disciplinary forum: at this scale,

physics, biology, and chemistry meet and

scientific interactions can produce truly

novel insights. Most scientists would agree

on the importance of educating their

replacements; such an education will have

to be cross-disciplinary. Students at

Columbia can begin to be trained that

way through Frontiers of Science. This

kind of scientific collaboration, moreover,

can be tremendous fun for the faculty,

and teaching Frontiers provides a built-in

collaborative forum for some of

Columbia’s best scientists.

A second impetus for the creation of

Frontiers was provided by the realization

that all students should learn about the

analytical tools that scientists use. We all

need the ability to critically examine scien-

tific evidence if we are to make wise

choices about today’s most pressing

issues—climate change, stem cells, nuclear

technology, transplants—and the problems

that we cannot now imagine but that we

will have to solve in the future. This set of

tools is outlined in Frontiers codirector

David Helfand’s Web-based text, Scientific

Habits of Mind. This text provides a unify-

ing theme across the physical sciences and

life sciences components of the course.

The students meet in seminars to use these

analytical skills to tackle scientific problems

from the current literature. Their summer

reading list before matriculation now

includes Bill Bryson’s A Short History of

Nearly Everything.

The high school curriculum typically

focuses on the recognized pillars of science:

biology, chemistry, physics and mathemat-

ics. The college curriculum follows these

precepts for science students by requiring

courses in each discipline for its majors.

Modern science, however, is not limited to

these subjects and is now strongly cross-dis-

ciplinary. Understanding this synergistic

approach is as important for students who

pursue majors outside of science as it is for

the budding acolytes. By introducing stu-

dents to different areas of science together

with the analytical tools used by all disci-

plines, Frontiers of Science deals head-on

with the real challenges of understanding

science today. Students gain an appreciation

of areas outside of the traditional curricu-

lum (earth sciences, neuroscience) as well

as the way in which knowledge from one

desicipline can inspire another.

A running joke in Frontiers is that we

must have a New York Times spy; it is

uncanny how the paper’s weekly Science

Times section tracks Frontiers topics and

themes. This coincidence demonstrates that

it is possible to enrich faculty members’

interdisciplinary knowledge while teaching

cutting-edge science to eighteen- and nine-

teen-year-olds. We acknowledge that the

caution of generations of Columbia science

faculty was well placed: teaching Frontiers

is probably the biggest educational chal-

lenge that any faculty member has ever

faced. A seminar that includes an Intel sci-

ence winner and a student who is afraid of

math is difficult to get right; it is worth

attempting, though, and is tremendous fun. ■

Editor’s Note—This article is based on a

plenary presentation given at the pre-con-

ference symposium at the 2006 AAC&U

annual meeting.

References

Columbia University. 1933. Annual report of thepresident and treasurer to the trustees,June 30, 1933. New York: ColumbiaUniversity.

——. 1946. A college program in action. NewYork: Columbia University.

National Research Council. 2003. BIO2010:Transforming undergraduate education forfuture research biologists. Washington,DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. 1999. Transformingundergraduate education in science, math-ematics, engineering, and technology.Washington, DC: National AcademiesPress.

16 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 17

WWe may all be familiar with Yeats’s assertion that “edu-

cation is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a

fire”; however, our institutional structures and practices

are not always as intellectually incendiary as we might

want. Undergraduate students often see general educa-

tion as a coerced initiation into the academy, something

to be endured, not celebrated, and checked off in terms

of requirements and courses having little to do with

their interests and little perceived relationship to their

respective majors or intended life goals. One major

challenge for undergraduate education is to create

intellectually engaging contexts for learning that vest

students in their learning, expand intellectual curiosity,

and foster intellectual development throughout the

undergraduate years.

At Indiana University–Purdue University

Indianapolis (IUPUI), an urban public research univer-

sity located in downtown Indianapolis, we have

addressed this challenge both structurally and pedagog-

ically. One key campus goal, articulated as part of a

concerted effort to double our capacity for diversity as

well as to double the number of graduates over the next

five years, is to expand powerful pedagogies and aca-

demic and student support programs to increase reten-

tion, targeting … first-year students. The programs in

place to achieve that goal for first-year students in par-

ticular include learning communities, themed learning

communities, ePort (our electronic student portfolio),

our gateway program, and the supported implementa-

tion of powerful pedagogies such as study abroad pro-

grams, internships, undergraduate research, service

learning, integrative learning, and cocurricular learning.

Principles of Undergraduate Learning

We believe that the primary way to connect students

with their learning is to consider “all” of a student.

Psychologists posit attitudes, behaviors, and cognition

as aspects of our existence—what we value, what we

do, and what we know. Building on that understanding,

we further believe that, in order to accommodate com-

plex global dynamics of communication, economic

development, and social mobility, undergraduate edu-

cation must meaningfully integrate what students

already know, value, and do into curricular and cocur-

ricular programs. At IUPUI, the conceptual framework

for that integration is provided in six Principles of

Undergraduate Learning (PULs):

■ core communication and quantitative skills

■ critical thinking

■ integration and application of knowledge

■ intellectual breadth, depth, and adaptiveness

■ understanding society and culture

■ values and ethics

In 1998, after six years of intense deliberations, our

faculty stepped boldly away from our outmoded distrib-

utive model when they approved the PULs, defined the

skills and ways of knowing embodied in them, and

developed campus-level outcomes for each of them.

From “My Course” to “Our Program”:Collective Responsibility for First-Year Student Success

By Scott Evenbeck, dean of the University College; and Sharon Hamilton, professor of English, Chancellor’sProfessor, and associate dean of the faculties; both of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

18 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

The goal is for these PULs to serve as the

intellectual framework for all curricular

and cocurricular programs for all IUPUI

students. As a University of Michigan

Student said:

So you get here and they start asking

you, “What do you…want to major in?

... what courses [do] you want to take?”

and you get the impression that’s what

it’s all about—courses and majors. So,

you take the courses. You get your card

punched. You try a little this and a lit-

tle that. Then comes GRADUATION.

And you wake up and you look at this

bunch of courses and then it hits you:

They don’t add up to anything. It’s just

a bunch of courses. It doesn’t mean a

thing.

Our goal at IUPUI is for students to

realize right from the start—even as early

as in orientation—that they are engaged in

a coherent program intentionally designed

and optimally scaffolded for their needs,

not a jumble of courses and requirements.

Achieving that goal has required a sea of

changes in faculty and staff perceptions,

moving away from “my course” or “my

activity” to conversations about and cur-

riculum planning for “our program.”

Taking a programmatic view in our curricu-

lar and cocurricular learning experiences is

a key part of our efforts to improve student

success and retention.

Our story of shared responsibility for

first-year student success and retention

includes administrative structures, policies,

and processes, such as enrollment manage-

ment, orientation, and placement; curricu-

lar structures, such as learning communi-

ties and thematic learning communities;

cocurricular structures such as student

leadership programs and Unity Day (a stu-

dent organized “fair” on students’ explo-

rations of diversity within their first-year

seminars); and faculty development struc-

tures such as the Gateway Program and

Communities of Practice. The PULs are

the common element in each of these insti-

tutional structures. We employ multiple

forms of assessment to ensure the effec-

tiveness of each of the above structures,

but our most innovative and comprehen-

sive approach to assessing curricular and

cocurricular learning, in terms of both

improvement and achievement, is ePort,

our electronic student portfolio. Our major

institutional structure for first-year student

retention and success is University College,

whose faculty and staff represent all the

administrative and curricular structures

mentioned above.

Marsha Baxter-Magolda’s research, a

long-term qualitative study of student

intellectual development, suggests that stu-

dents often report that they learn in con-

texts outside the classroom. Long-standing

practices of internships and apprentice-

ships have always provided aspiring profes-

sionals with such contexts to apply their

learning, places where students bring their

“all” to their learning. Yet, for entering stu-

dents, the contexts in which learning

occurs have too often been classrooms

where students experience formal learning

as the accumulation of facts to be pre-

sented back to the faculty on examinations,

then promptly forgotten. Now faculty at

IUPUI delineate learning outcomes at the

programmatic level with reference to the

PULs and articulate what students will

know and be able to do during and at the

conclusion of their major.

Russ Edgerton, a former director of the

Pew Undergraduate Forum, delineated a

list of powerful pedagogies (a list akin to the

U.S. News listing of best practices, that

attempted to get beyond measures of

resources and selectivity as indices of excel-

lence). While no pedagogy is, in itself, either

powerful or empowering, particularly if it is

practiced in isolation, these approaches,

when part of a coherent, intentionally devel-

oped curriculum for learning, have been

proven to increase student engagement and

enhance student learning. Early data on our

campus indicate that they also have an

impact on student retention. The powerful

pedagogies that are a formal part of our

approach to undergraduate learning include

the following:

■ learning communities (uc.iupui.edu/

staff/research_learnComm.asp)

■ thematic learning communities

(www.opd.iupui.edu/units/coil/tlc.asp),

which includes service learning

(csl.iupui.edu/ )

■ undergraduate research (www.urop.

iupui.edu) and internships

(www.solutioncenter.iupui.edu/

internships.htm )

■ study abroad (www.iupui.edu/

~oia/SA/studyabroad)

Students in internships or apprentice-

ship roles bring with them knowledge and

skills from the classroom that, coupled with

attitudes and values, make for a wholeness

of experience. Students constantly create

knowledge by learning and interpreting

what they experience in terms of what they

bring to the learning context. When stu-

dents are in these involving contexts, they

are much more likely to learn. Through

exposure to the aforementioned pedago-

gies, first-year students are now in commu-

nity contexts to make their learning their

own.

First-Year Engagement

Service learning has become one of the

most powerful pedagogies in undergradu-

ate education. It not only fuses attitude,

behavior, and cognition but also builds for

citizenship. The American Democracy

Project, the AAC&U Center for Liberal

Education and Civic Engagement, and

other national projects are helping our

undergraduate institutions understand and

articulate the importance of education for

citizenship. Our students have launched

“Democracy Plaza” where they speak out

on key issues via chalkboards outside and

inside the building. Students at all levels

participate in the Democracy Plaza, which

provides public forums with opposing sides

of key issues. What is most exciting is that

several of our first-year students in themed

learning communities participate in these

forums as part of the cocurricular expecta-

tions for their community. One in particu-

lar, “Communication, Reflection, and

Action: Students in a Democratic Society,”

uses the Democracy Plaza for curricular as

well as cocurricular learning.

Sometimes there are serendipitous

occurrences when students are in service

learning contexts. For example, our first-

year seminars for prospective business

majors included experiences in elemen-

tary schools where college students

engaged with their young charges in talk-

ing about business and the economy in

our country. We had several reports of

these students changing to education

majors.

Some campuses are providing short

international experiences within the stu-

dent’s first year of study, a means of

encouraging later study abroad. These

short, intensive experiences are often the

first times our students have an interna-

tional experience. They often come back

reporting that they have learned more

about themselves than the places they vis-

ited. Entering students are now in diverse

communities, sometimes in international

contexts, where they make their learning

their own.

Likewise, offering students the

opportunity to participate in undergradu-

ate research in their first year can engage

them early in their college career. The

Department of Biology hires entering

students as fledgling laboratory assistants,

bringing them into the laboratories as

neophyte employees—giving them both

academic and work experiences. Entering

students are now in laboratories, not

waiting until they are completing inde-

pendent research projects as seniors,

where they make their learning their

own.

A multitude of factors contribute to

student success and retention, many of

which we can only minimally influence.

Curricular and institutional structures,

however, are factors that we can intention-

ally shape, using institutional data to maxi-

mize the intellectual capacity of the learn-

ing environments we create for our stu-

dents. While the story of IUPUI’s first-year

program is not a story of unqualified suc-

cess, it is a story of steady, incremental

progress to increased retention and

increasing student success. ■

In addition to its annualmeeting, AAC&U offers aseries of working conferencesand institutes each year.Additional information aboutthe upcoming meetings listedbelow is available online atwww.aacu.org/meetings.

Network for AcademicRenewal Meetings

October 19–21, 2006

Diversity and Learning:

A Defining Moment

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

November 9–11, 2006

Faculty Work in the

New Academy:

Emerging Challenges and

Evolving Roles

Chicago, Illinois

AAC&U’s Annual Meeting

January 17–20, 2007

The Real Test:

Liberal Education and

Democracy’s Big Questions

New Orleans, Louisiana

AA

C&

U C

ALE

ND

AR

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 19

20 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

TThe First-Year Experience program at Gallaudet

University continues to evolve. In a ten-year time

period, by making use of best practices in the first col-

lege years, building on existing resources, and using

assessment to guide change, the program has become a

central, effective part of the undergraduate experience.

It has improved retention of first-year students by 15

percent. And yet, our work is not done. We look to the

future, to find better ways to meet the changing needs

of students.

Providing Quality Educational and Social

Experiences

Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, is the world’s

only liberal arts university for deaf and hard of hearing

students. It was founded in 1864 by an act of Congress,

and its charter was signed by President Abraham

Lincoln. Enrollment is approximately 2,000 undergrad-

uate and graduate students. Deaf and hard of hearing

undergraduate students choose from more than forty

majors leading to a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of

Science degree. While in many ways Gallaudet is

unique, it is faced with the same challenges as any

other college. What can we do to be sure our students

are learning and persisting? All of the scholarly work on

student persistence leads to a few simple principles.

Students who stay in college have quality educational

and social experiences. Retention of students is not in

and of itself a goal. The goal should be to enhance

students’ social and intellectual development.

For the past twenty-five years, as a result of the

work at the National Resource Center for the First-

Year Experience and Students in Transition, a huge

body of research and practical information has evolved

on how best to teach and work with new students. In

addition, the Policy Center on the First Year of College,

an outgrowth of the National Resource Center, was

established to study assessment in the first college year,

and later to determine the characteristics of colleges

and universities that “got it right.” We learned from

these “Institutions of Excellence.”

As our program developed, we faced many chal-

lenges. The most pressing challenge was gathering

information to show that students’ success was con-

nected to what we were doing. Ten years ago,

Gallaudet’s fall-to-fall first-year persistence rates were

comparable to those of similar institutions. It was easy

to discuss a “good year” or a “not so good year” in

terms of the characteristics of admitted students. We

tried interdisciplinary courses, problem-based learning,

and learning communities, but often these initiatives

would come and go as new and more pressing priori-

ties emerged. We needed evidence to validate our

efforts, and data to support our belief that the first

year should be a priority. Thus, in 1995, after two years

as a special assistant to the president to explore reten-

tion, I became the individual to direct our first college

year. Over the next ten years, I collaborated with many

campus units to develop a strong first-year experience

program.

Why Teaching First-Year Students IsRewarding for EveryoneBy Catherine F. Andersen, professor of communication studies, director of the First-Year Experience,Gallaudet University

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 21

What We Did

We were challenged with the daunting task

of maintaining our academic focus while

creating a first college year that helped stu-

dents to see the benefits of the wealth of

programs and services available on our

campus. Central to this change was our

First-Year Seminar (FYS) course. Begun in

1995 as a three-credit elective, this seminar

later (after the faculty were presented with

data showing an 11 percent higher persist-

ence rate for students who took the course)

became a general education requirement.

Since becoming required, first-year retention

has continued to improve.

Why is the course effective? First-Year

Seminar has become the venue where stu-

dents can develop academic skills and access

campus programs in meaningful ways.

Academic advisers are assigned to FYS sec-

tions; FYS sections are linked with other

courses to form learning communities.

Learning communities expose students to a

wide range of faculty, and the development

of learning communities also provides an

opportunity to share with faculty common

outcomes for first-year students. At

Gallaudet, faculty development opportunities

have been created over the lunch hour and

during the summer through teaching and

learning initiatives. We have partnered with

the honors program and cross-pollinated

whenever possible.

Gallaudet has designed active learning

activities that require students to look at

multiple perspectives and make connections

between and among disciplines. Students

explore the relationship between emotional

intelligence and college success, and are

constantly asked to connect what they learn

about themselves and others—to self-assess

and reflect in their writing and discussions.

To further community building, we

have targeted peer interactions and faculty

and student interactions outside of class for

enhancement. Faculty are given free cafe-

teria passes for meals with students. A

movie night program allows faculty and

students to view films of common interest.

Other activities require students to work

together and explore campus resources.

We have designed ways, in conjunction

with the Career Center and Advising

Center, to help students learn about them-

selves through the Myers-Brigg Type

Indicator, the Baron EQ-i assessment of

emotional intelligence, and our Majors and

Career Project. Peer Health Advocates

come to the classroom, and workshops are

held in the dorms about relevant topics for

first-year students. Students are given

credit for attending extracurricular events

and reflecting on what they learn.

FYS students are assigned faculty or

staff mentors. Students meet librarians in

the library, where they learn how to search

for information to complete a required

FYS assignment. Carefully selected junior-

and senior-level students are assigned to

FYS sections as teaching assistants, and

work closely with FYS instructors. These

students help first-year students navigate

the system in ways that faculty cannot, by

serving as role models and invaluable

sources of information. Thought-provoking

readings are assigned and students are

constantly reflecting and writing.

First-Year Initiatives

In addition to the course content and deliv-

ery, other initiatives contribute to the first-

year experience. Gallaudet established a

common reading program, which involves

the entire campus community in activities

related to a book selected for incoming stu-

dents, including an author visit. A new stu-

dent convocation has been established to

welcome new students into the campus

community. Every spring, twenty “Fantastic

First-Year Students” are chosen by faculty

and staff for recognition. Most recently, stu-

dents who participated as leaders for new

student orientation became the teaching

assistants for FYS classes, further strength-

ening the seamless transition into and

through the first year. A summer bridge

program allows students who may need

additional work in math or English to come

to campus early. Special sections of FYS are

designated for non-traditional students and

students who are new to sign language.

FYS has become the venue where students

can develop academic skills and access

campus programs in meaningful ways.

22 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

In conjunction with academic advis-

ing, an early alert system was developed

to intervene with students in need. FYS

instructors carefully track attendance and

contact students with excessive absences

to let them know they are concerned.

Students’ advisers are contacted so they can

check on attendance in other classes and if

necessary, schedule a meeting with the stu-

dent. Finally, we have a strong relationship

with our academic technology staff. They

help FYS instructors make the best use of

technology, so that students have 24/7

access to course information and can easily

connect with classmates and instructors.

Collaboration with many campus

units is critical to this plan. To ensure

ongoing input from a cross-section of the

campus, Gallaudet established a First-Year

Council comprised of faculty and staff

from academic and student affairs.

Through monthly meetings, we find and

implement ways to better work together.

Were We Successful?

If persistence is one measure of success,

our campus-wide effort in the first year

works. Over ten years, persistence has

increased 15 percent during a period when

overall retention rates nationwide are not

significantly improving. However, continu-

ous assessment of each initiative and pro-

gram has been necessary. For example, we

know whether the book we choose for

common reading each year engages a wide

variety of our students. We know if they

read it and why they do or do not. We

know if the summer bridge program is

effective and how to improve it. We still

use the traditional measures of persistence,

along with grade point average, grades in

First-Year Seminar, and attendance, but in

addition, we have used the First-Year

Initiative (FYI), our home-grown First-

Year Experience Survey, and the wealth of

student feedback from specific prompts we

designed for their midterm and final

reflective essays.

We also use the FYI, a tool developed

by Educational Benchmarking in conjunc-

tion with the National Policy Center, as

part of our assessment strategy. In addition

to providing national benchmarking com-

parisons with other participating institu-

tions, longitudinal data can help assess

whether or not new initiatives are working.

For example, in 2003, we made some sig-

nificant changes to our FYS course. We

targeted specific goals that included the

following:

■ academic and cognitive skills

■ sense of belonging

■ critical thinking

■ connections with faculty

■ connections with peers

■ out-of-class engagement

■ engaging pedagogy

In an effort to enhance these areas, we

implemented a number of programs and

activities through which we

■ expanded learning communities (by

linking FYS with another course);

■ used students’ expanding knowledge

of self (MBTI, Emotional Intelligence

knowledge) as an overarching

approach to achieving course goals;

■ developed weekly active learning activi-

ties to make the “covert become overt”;

■ provided weekly training for instruc-

tors and teaching assistants;

■ used articles from a thematic reader

that reinforced learning outcomes;

■ used “dialogues journals” between

student and instructor;

■ developed out-of-class opportunities

for faculty and students;

■ expanded writing assignments.

When we compared 2003 and 2004

FYI data we found a statistically significant

improvement on every factor. For this

same student cohort, first-year retention

was the highest in ten years, with a 5 per-

cent increase from 2003.

What We Really Learned

What we learned is that it does take a vil-

lage to make a difference. By learning

from experts, building on what we already

had, assessing, reassessing, and changing,

we improved the first year of college.

And as I conclude this article, I am

reminded of what is on our “to do” list for

tomorrow. Tomorrow we will work on the

implementation plan for electronic port-

folios, and expand ways to build on the

success we had this past fall in helping

first-year students develop their emo-

tional intelligence skills. Our work is not

done. It never should be. The title of this

article, “Why Teaching First-Year

Students Is Rewarding for Everyone,” is

so true. As faculty and staff, we are also

lifelong learners. We constantly look for

ways to be better educators, and the

reward of seeing students succeed is one

that reminds us of why we got into this

business in the first place. ■

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 23

TThe First-Year Experience program (FYE) was piloted

at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) in fall

2000 and has been offered consistently each fall semes-

ter for the past six years. FYE provides students with a

holistic education to help them understand how college

intertwines with real life. In this program, classroom

content is integrated with campus life; with student

services, such as advising and tutoring; and with serv-

ice-learning opportunities outside the classroom.

Course content is linked to help students see the rela-

tionship between academic disciplines and college

activities.

Students enroll as a cohort in an FYE block of

three or more courses that meet Monday through

Thursday mornings in one classroom. The four courses

in the FYE block are Freshman English, Introduction

to Sociology, Strategies for College Success, and

Introduction to Computers. This block is organized

around a thematic focus and approach. In fall 2005, the

FYE block theme was “Exploring Your Options in a

Changing World.” Previous FYE blocks included one

that was fully integrated around a problem-based learn-

ing approach and another that was focused on strategies

for success in developmental math and English compo-

sition. Once students have completed the first semester

of FYE, they have the option to continue in a two-

course block in the second semester.

Practices for Successful Student Learning

The Paradise Valley Community College FYE program

is designed around principles of “best practices” in

learning from the twenty-year-old national first-year

experience movement. The program’s design also

reflects the college’s mission and goals and the needs of

our student population. At PVCC, 86 percent of all stu-

dents are classified as first-year students and half of our

students are age twenty-eight or younger.

The goals of the FYE program are to

■ increase student retention/persistence to the sec-

ond semester and second year of college;

■ increase preparedness for future academic course-

work and academic engagement;

■ identify connections between college coursework

and future plans and goals;

■ build relationships and community, and help stu-

dents to engage in campus life.

In FYE, students find a supportive environment to

ease the transition to college. Students have the same

Intertwining College with Real Life: The Community College First-Year Experience

By Renee Cornell, First-Year Experience coordinator, and Mary Lou Mosley, dean of instruction, both of ParadiseValley Community College

I came into FYE fearing college and not knowing what to expect. In this classyou will have nothing to fear except for learning and new experiences.

—FYE student comment, fall 2000

24 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

block of teachers, so any learning difficul-

ties can be identified early, discussed by

the teaching team, and quickly resolved.

Instructors also serve as advocates for stu-

dents by answering a variety of questions

related to academic and college life.

Because students spend so much time

together, they form strong relationships

early in the semester. Furthermore, FYE

allows college services to be provided more

efficiently. For example, an academic

adviser visits the FYE classroom in both

the fall and spring semesters to advise stu-

dents, and scholarship and honors course

information is discussed in the classroom.

The pilot FYE teaching team added a peer

mentor whose role was to provide guidance

and support to students. The peer mentor

now serves as an integral part of the col-

lege experience, helping students become

more self-confident in their personal goals

and academic lives and talking with them

about academic requirements, resources,

and services.

The FYE program embodies proven

practices for successful student learning.

Faculty use experiential and active learning

techniques, provide complex problems for

students to solve, and focus on collabora-

tive opportunities for both faculty and stu-

dents to engage each other as a community

of learners. FYE increases student learn-

ing, as evidenced by retention and persist-

ence data, student survey results, and stu-

dent comments. In one cohort, the process

of completing the final project led a stu-

dent to reflect that “I made it through

finals and it was one of the hardest weeks

of my life. I am exhausted and weak, but I

am happy. It feels good to know I can do

what I want as long as I set my mind to it.”

In FYE, students take responsibility for

their own learning and the results are

depicted in a variety of ways. Students use

creative methods to demonstrate their

learning, including papers, PowerPoint

presentations, Web pages, group projects,

and posters. The learning that occurs in

FYE is deep, long lasting, relevant, and

transformative.

Cocurricular Activities

FYE cocurricular activities have been built

so that students integrate and apply content

and skills from their classes and from their

experiences in the community. During the

fall semester, the two cocurricular activities

are “Cultural Quest in Phoenix” and

“Service Learning.” The “Cultural Quest in

Phoenix” consists of teams of three-to-four

students who are required to visit a club,

museum/cultural center, restaurant/market,

and place of worship identified by the fac-

ulty. The objectives are to raise cultural

awareness, connect students to the larger

community, teach them about other cul-

tures in a “real-world” setting, link diverse

classes and assignments into one compre-

hensive project, and provide a cooperative

learning experience. Each team takes pho-

tographs with a disposable camera, collects

materials, and writes descriptions to pro-

duce a poster display that represents their

experiences.

Each course has a specific part of the

assignment. For the Introduction to

Computers class, students keep an elec-

tronic journal in which they answer ques-

tions such as “How do traditions of your

own family compare with traditions you

observed while doing research for this

project?” For the Freshman English com-

ponent, students report findings when

they are assigned tasks such as “Ask the

cashier at the ethnic market what his or

her favorite food item is that is sold in the

market.” Students also answer a conclud-

ing question after finishing the project:

“What did this project teach me about my

community?”

The other fall-semester cocurricular

project, “Service Learning,” requires stu-

dents to volunteer for twelve hours in an

animal care/environmental, health/social

services, or educational area. The students

keep a reflective journal, write a reflective

essay, and make an oral presentation using

PowerPoint.

The spring-semester English and

anthropology FYE cohort participate in one

cocurricular activity, “Exploring

Connections in the Global Community.”

Students choose activities related to cultural

FYE increases student learning, as evidenced

by retention and persistence data, student

survey results, and student comments.

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 25

anthropology—for example, viewing a film

at a local film festival or visiting a nearby

museum. Students then write one-page

papers using their English composition skills

to describe their experiences and observa-

tions in terms of cultural anthropology. A

student stated, “I have attained an immense

amount of knowledge in the FYE due to the

coordination of class projects and topics.”

Program Challenges and Strengths

PVCC has found that the major challenges

in running the FYE program are primarily

administrative. The biggest challenge is

securing faculty from the different disci-

plines who are able to work closely

together. To ensure a successful program,

faculty must be willing to spend extra

time planning and meeting, both to get

the FYE block ready and to communi-

cate and make adjustments during the

semester. Other challenges revolve

around scheduling a block of classes—

especially in one classroom—and design-

ing special registration processes so that

students enroll in all classes in the FYE

block. Advertising the FYE block to both

faculty and students involves employing a

variety of methods that are critical to the

program’s success. First, advisors need to

understand how FYE is structured, how

it contributes to student success, and the

kind of students who should be in spe-

cific FYE blocks. Working with the advis-

ers is an ongoing activity. In addition, the

FYE faculty reach out to the high school

counselors and parents of high school

seniors to explain the advantages and

opportunities FYE provides for students.

Despite such challenges, the FYE pro-

gram has benefited the faculty and the stu-

dents. Faculty discover each other’s disci-

plines and teaching styles, and they experi-

ence professional growth as they create

program curricula and attend conferences

as a learning team. And the FYE program

has consistently produced a variety of posi-

tive outcomes for students:

■ Deep student learning occurs because

students are involved as a community

around engaging projects and linked

classes.

■ Students develop strong relationships

with each other. Students persevere to

the end of the semester because of

their commitment to other group

members and because of the friend-

ships that develop. Outside of class,

students meet socially, study together,

and carpool to their service learning

commitments.

■ Students develop strong relationships

with faculty that continue into the

next semester and next year. Many of

the students continue to meet with

instructors who are not teaching in

the FYE during the spring semester.

Just as importantly, students not

enrolled in the spring FYE program

continue to visit with faculty, ask for

advice, and share successes.

■ High expectations combined with fac-

ulty and student support helps stu-

dents achieve success. As one student

put it, “In my case, FYE helped me

tons. I not only had to adjust to col-

lege, but in a way, I also had to adjust

to a new culture and all the teachers

were really helpful. The group proj-

ects also helped because I interacted

with people I never approached in

class. The assignments also made us

get to know new places and each

other.”

■ Student support and intervention are

easier to provide when a group of fac-

ulty has the same students and can

easily identify problems and patterns

as well as follow students’ progress in

the FYE courses. Retention from one

semester to the next and to the fol-

lowing year is higher for FYE stu-

dents. Within the semester, 90 per-

cent of the FYE students are retained

and 89 percent enroll for spring

semester. Eighty-five percent of fall

FYE students enroll in classes the

next fall semester, as compared to 43

percent of non-FYE students.

A key strength of FYE is that it can

be replicated at any campus and designed

specifically to meet the needs of any tar-

get group of students. Through collabora-

tion among faculty and partnerships

between academic and student affairs, the

resources of any college can be leveraged

to increase student learning and success

for first-year students. The First-Year

Experience program has brought together

PVCC faculty, staff, and students as a

community of learners. As one student

put it, “FYE will be an experience you will

never forget if you take advantage of the

opportunities that will come your way. For

me it opened my eyes up to realize you

can do anything you put your mind and

heart to.” ■

26 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

FFirst-year seminars have become ubiquitous in the past

two decades, finding homes in institutions of every type

and size. We believe that these programs are vital for

our students’ achievement, yet the research document-

ing positive outcomes of first-year seminars is still in its

inaugural stage. A review of relevant studies synthe-

sized in the first and second volumes of Ernest

Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini’s How College Affects

Students (1991; 2005) provides an overview of the cur-

rent research and indication of a research agenda for

the future.

Among the changes between the first and second

volumes of How College Affects Students is the increase

in the number of research studies about first-year semi-

nars. When the first volume was published in 1991, the

trend to focus the needs of students in their first under-

graduate year through various programs had existed for

fewer than twenty years, and there were few research

projects to review. By the time the 2005 volume rolled

off the press, Pascarella and Terenzini had been able to

synthesize a considerable amount of research focused

on first-year seminars. They found substantial evidence

indicating that first-year programs increase persistence

from the first to second year of college.

Pascarella and Terenzini observed that first-year

seminars vary greatly in form and function across insti-

tutions. Yet these seminars have become quite prevalent

and can be found at 95 percent of four-year institutions

in the United States. The element that is most common

to first-year seminars is a regularly scheduled meeting

time with a specific instructor for new students.

Elements that vary include the frequency and duration

of class meeting times; content, pedagogy, and structure;

credit hours and grading; and whether the course is

required or an elective. The common goal of first-year

seminars is to increase academic performance and per-

sistence through academic and social integration. The

long-term goal is increased degree attainment.

Persistence and Retention

Studies of first- to second-year persistence dominate

the research, which has multiplied since the late

1980s. For example, the University of South

Carolina–Columbia found that students who partici-

pated in their first-year seminar between 1973 and

1996 were more likely to persist into their sophomore

year than students who did not participate in the

seminar. The differences were statistically significant

for fifteen of the twenty-three years. Several other

studies of the relationship between first-year seminar

participation and first- to second-year persistence

found similar results.

First-Year Seminars Increase Persistence and Retention: A Summary of the Evidence from How College Affects Students

By Kathleen Goodman, doctoral student and research assistant, Center for Research on UndergraduateEducation, and Ernest T. Pascarella, Mary Louise Petersen Professor of Higher Education and codirector,Center for Research on Undergraduate Education, both of the University of Iowa

26 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 27

While statistical significance tells us

that it is unlikely these results would be

found by chance, effect size can be a more

useful indicator because it measures the

magnitude of a result. Two studies at sin-

gle institutions specifically matched first-

year seminar participants on characteris-

tics such as gender, ethnicity, high school

achievement, and admissions test scores,

which allowed Pascarella and Terenzini to

measure the effect size of the seminar

impact. They found that the chance of

participants returning for a second year of

college was 7 percentage points greater

than for nonparticipants. Another study,

based on random assignment of students

to first-year seminars, found that re-enroll-

ment for the second year of college was 13

percentage points higher for the seminar

participants.

Through a synthesis of more than forty

additional studies, Pascarella and Terenzini

found that first-year seminar participants

are more likely to graduate within four

years than nonparticipants. The estimated

effect size indicates an advantage of 5 to 15

percentage points for the students who

take the seminars. However, a note of cau-

tion is warranted regarding these results

because none of these studies controlled

for students’ precollege characteristics.

Factors such as grades, commitment to

education, and educational attainment of

parents are likely to be confounded with

the effects of participating in the seminar.

When precollege characteristics are con-

trolled for, the magnitude of advantage

tends to shrink, although it does not

entirely disappear.

One method of controlling for prec-

ollege characteristics is to match both

seminar participant and nonparticipant

groups on these characteristics. Studies

that employed this method conclude that

participation in first-year seminars for

undergraduate students does promote

persistence into the second year and

beyond. Another way to control for prec-

ollege characteristics is by using various

statistical procedures. Studies introducing

controls using these methods also con-

cluded that first-year seminar participa-

tion has a statistically reliable positive

influence on persistence and degree

attainment.

A third method of controlling for pre-

college characteristics is to employ a true

experimental research design in which

participants are randomly assigned to

“treatment” groups. In this case, the

“treatment” is the first-year seminar.

Random assignment into a seminar or

non-seminar condition creates two groups

that should be similar in all respects

except for their participation or nonpartici-

pation in the first-year seminar. Thus, one

can reasonably conclude that any statisti-

cally reliable differences found between

the two groups can be attributed to partic-

ipation in the seminar. Researchers at the

University of Maryland, College Park used

a true experimental design to study the

impact of seminar participation during

four semesters. They concluded that first-

year seminar participants were signifi-

cantly more likely to persist than similar

students who did not participate in the

seminar.

Who Benefits from First-Year

Seminars?

Educational research is often concerned

with “conditional effects”—do different

types of students benefit from a program

or service differently? The weight of evi-

dence suggests that first-year seminars

have provided positive benefits to all kinds

of students and that such seminars are a

good all-purpose intervention to increase

persistence from first to second year.

Evidence indicates that students who have

benefited from participation in first-year

seminars include both males and females;

both minority and majority students; stu-

dents of various ages; students from vari-

ous majors; students living on or off cam-

pus; and regularly admitted students and

at-risk students.

The research on first-year seminars

has also found positive outcomes in addi-

tion to persistence and retention. For

example, several studies have concluded

that students who participate in first-year

seminars experience more frequent and

meaningful interactions with faculty and

with other students. Other investigations

indicate that participants become more

involved in cocurricular activities, while

still others show an increased level of satis-

faction with the college experience.

Academically, students who participate in

first-year seminars have more positive per-

ceptions of themselves as learners. They

also achieve higher grades in college.

Suggestions for Future Research

There is still important work to be done if

we are to fully understand the impact of

first-year seminars on student persistence

and retention. Research design, in particu-

lar, will be of crucial importance in future

inquiry. In order to estimate the true

impact or value-added of first-year semi-

nars, the influence on persistence that is

attributable to actual participation (versus

nonparticipation) in the seminar must be

separated from the influence of the indi-

vidual characteristics of the students.

True experiments in which students

are randomly assigned to participation or

nonparticipation in first-year seminars are,

unequivocally, the best way to accomplish

this. However, it is frequently the case that

conducting experiments in which students

are randomly assigned to different experi-

ences in college is neither practical nor

desirable. The next best approach is to

employ a longitudinal research design that

uses statistical procedures to “control” for

students’ precollege characteristics (e.g.

measured ability, high school grades,

socioeconomic status, and degree aspira-

tions) that might confound the relationship

between participation in a first-year seminar

and subsequent persistence.

Although some of the studies con-

ducted so far have employed variations on

this design, the design used by the typical

study in the existing body of research has

been discernibly weaker. These kinds of lon-

gitudinal studies are, admittedly, more diffi-

cult and time-consuming to conduct than

either cross-sectional investigations or inves-

tigations that do not take student precollege

characteristics into account. Yet if we wish

to create a credible body of evidence about

the benefits of first-year seminars, there is

simply no substitute for longitudinal investi-

gations. A good example of a recent study

that controls for students’ precollege charac-

teristics is the cross-institutional survey of

first-year seminars conducted by Stephen

Porter and Randy Swing (2006), which esti-

mates the impact of specific seminar com-

ponents on intent to persist.

The body of research on first-year

seminars has expanded considerably over

the past fifteen years, providing substantial

evidence that persistence and degree

attainment has increased as first-year sem-

inars have been implemented. Evidence

also suggests that first-year seminars have

benefits for students, irrespective of differ-

ences in gender, ethnicity, age, major, and

the like. The seminars may encourage

additional positive outcomes, including

increased student–faculty interaction,

increased involvement in cocurricular

activities, and increased academic satisfac-

tion. Yet there is still a need for additional

research to clarify whether first-year semi-

nars can be causally linked to various

desirable outcomes. In this regard, we

have suggested the crucial importance of

longitudinal designs in future research. ■

References

Pascarella, E. T., and P. T. Terenzini. 2005. A thirddecade of research. Vol. 2 of How collegeaffects students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pascarella, E. T., and P. T. Terenzini. 1991. Howcollege affects students. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Porter, S. R., and R. L. Swing. 2006.Understanding how first-year seminarsaffect persistence. Research in HigherEducation 47 (1): 89–109.

28 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

Why Do I Have to TakeThis Course? A SStudent GGuide tto MMaking SSmartEducational CChoicesBy Robert Shoenberg

This practicalguide, writtenfor undergrad-uate students,is intended totake some ofthe mysteryout of curric-ular require-ments andeducate stu-dents about

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Selected sections and topics covered are:Your college journeyDeveloping your intellectual

skillsAnalytic thinkingBeing an active learnerNine tips for dealing with unstructured problemsReaching intellectual adulthoodBecoming a citizen of the world

This publication is ideal for use innew-student orientations andfirst-year programs. Excerpts avail-able at www.aacu.org.$12 /36 pp /ISBN: 0-9763576-5-8

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Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 29

MMy nineteen-year-old son, Ben—the 6´ 6´´ sopho-

more forward whose fluidity on the court and well-

defined biceps make me whisper, “From whence did

that godlike creature emanate?”—is taking his first

college English course at Allegheny College.

Although he took honors and AP English in high

school, I don’t believe he ever read a book all the

way through. Internet savvy, he could get a pretty

good sense of the plot, characters, and critical his-

tory of The Scarlet Letter without reading much, if

any, Hawthorne. He reached the state basketball

semifinals and high school graduation on the

strength of his rebounding acumen, not his enthusiasm

for reading.

Which is why his response to his introduction to

literature course has so surprised and gratified me. As it

turns out, my son is, in fact, the sort of reader I’d

hoped he’d be, beginning with Good Night, Moon and

Good Dog, Carl. He’s curious; he connects the texts

he’s reading with other texts he knows; and he finds

pleasure in exercising his brain.

During Ben’s first year of college, his philosophy

professor assigned a text by African American feminist

bell hooks. Ben called home wondering what the hell

the crazy lady was trying to say and why he had to read

what he termed “such crap.” I laughed, knowing that

surely hooks would be amused (and validated) by such

a response from a privileged white boy.

Interestingly, he’s read more of hooks’s work

this year, and one measure of his intellectual

growth is his response. One of the drafts he asked

me to look at includes the following sentence: “In

Feminist Theory from Margin to Center, hooks

explains step by step how male domination, espe-

cially white male domination, oppresses the hell

out of women.” While the diction is a little rough

for a formal paper, I didn’t have the heart to point

that out to him. The authenticity of his expression

spoke volumes about his personal engagement with

the material.

This English class, though, has marked a watershed

in our mother–son relationship. It has signaled the first

time Ben has ever asked me for the benefit of my

knowledge and experience rather than for money or the

keys. It has allowed him to pass along titles he thinks

would give me pleasure.

I treasure our e-mail and our follow-up phone

conversations. One might imagine how the following

messages in my in-box provided not only teaching

opportunities but also loving opportunities:

9-3: Mom: What does it mean when my teacher

asks the style of a poem? I know there are a lot of

couplets in the poems I read. Do you think he also

wants like meter and that stuff because if he does I

have no idea. Ok. Love ya.

9-12: You have to read that short story I was telling

you about. It is by Liza Ward and it’s called

“Snowbound.” It is one of the craziest stories I

have ever read. Check it out. It is in the O. Henry

Prize stories. Love ya. Oh, and what’s ambiguity?

My Son, the Reader: One Story of What Can Happen in the First Year of College

By Cheryl B. Torsney, associate provost for academic programs and professor of English, West Virginia University

11-2: I remember the name and author

of the short story I thought you should

read. The title is “The Drowned

Woman” by Frances de Pontes Peebles.

I suggest you read it and tell me what

you think about it. You could help me

out. HAHA. Love ya.

I ran out and read “The Drowned

Woman.” He was right: it’s a great story,

which I read as a meditation on colo-

nialism. Ben’s essay, however, argued

that while postcolonial Brazil is the set-

ting, the story is really about the oppres-

sion of women in traditional

Catholic cultures and how a lack

of education plays into the

oppression. Our congruent

readings suggested that

we were two attentive

readers focusing on

slightly different

details.

His last assignment for the term was

Louis Nordan’s Sharpshooter Blues, a

Southern gothic novel that Ben described

to me as “twisted.” His essay discussed

the power of a gun “to end lives, take

control of others, and liberate.” He’d

called to talk with me about it. While I

had yet to read it—it had arrived the day

before from Amazon.com—I referred

him to Emily Dickinson’s poem 754, “My

Life had stood - a Loaded Gun,” figuring

the poem might further stimulate his

thinking, especially the closing lines, “For

I have but the

power to

kill,/Without

- the power

to die -.”

I could

detect real excitement when I read it to

him over the phone: “Yeah, Mom. That’s

good. That’ll work. Cool.”

Word from Ben last week was that he

thinks he might even take another

English course next year, maybe a course

in American literature, my field of spe-

cialization. No, he’s not majoring in the

subject, but he really likes the instructors,

the reading, the class discussion, and

even the writing.

Whether we admit it or not, we often

think of our undergraduates as our kids.

While we don’t cover their health insur-

ance and don’t celebrate their birthdays,

we do care about them. When they grad-

uate, earn honors, go on to successful

careers, we celebrate. We like to believe

they have benefited from our engagement

with them.

Our own children, however, are ours.

We don’t expect them to consult us on

our academic specialty, but when they

do, we plotz. When they perform what

we believe to be academic miracles—

even if it’s simply writing an insight-

ful essay—we kvel. Surely, this

must be how my mother felt

when I received my PhD.

She had tried to explain

to me the overwhelming

nature of her gratitude,

pride, and love, but I

didn’t understand. Now I

think I do. ■

30 AAC&U Summer 2006 peerReview

A

Summer 2006 peerReview AAC&U 31

As soon as my mother drove away last

August, leaving me at the University of

Maryland, alone, I began my journey of

becoming an adult; at least I feel like I did. I

remember walking into the building where

I was going to live for the next year, feeling

really old. “I am a college freshman,” I

thought to myself. I did not know what to

expect out of my freshman year. They say

that college is a time of self-discovery, full of

both trials and prosperity, and lasting mem-

ories and friends. Little did I know, my first

year of college would bring about so many

experiences, both positive and negative, that

would forever change me.

The first couple of weeks were a com-

plete party. All freshmen around me were

completely enthralled by the newfound

freedom that college came with. We could

stay up and out as late as we wanted to with-

out any questions. We could eat whatever

we wanted and have our rooms as messy as

we wanted. We were with friends twenty-

four hours a day, creating close bonds and

friendships. Freedom does not come with-

out a struggle, and we as freshman had to

struggle with high school, parents, and even

petty drama for the freedom we obtained

the minute we walked onto the college cam-

pus. Some people went a little too wild with

their newfound freedom, regretting many of

the things they did with the freedom.

Others proceeded with caution, sometimes

a little too much. I like to think that I found

a healthy medium between the two.

In high school, I considered myself

smart. Things came easily. Nothing was too

much of a challenge for me. Therefore,

coming to college, I did not expect that

things would be much harder. What made

me find myself terribly mistaken was my

first English paper. I worked hard on it and

expected a good grade. I got a C. Upon

receiving my grade, my heart dropped. It

was hard and not to mention new for me. I

did not get bad grades. Ever. I considered

my work to be “A” work, especially by my

own standards. Even so, I was very mis-

guided in the mindset of the work I had to

do in college coming to school. It is not

supposed to be easy, as nothing in life is.

Even though the grade was upsetting at

first, it provided me with a spark. I pushed

myself harder, harder than I ever had to

work. I spent countless numbers of hours

on the following papers, drafting, writing,

and editing in an endless cycle. It paid off;

I saw improvement with each paper.

Although I ended up not getting the cov-

eted “A” I sought, I got a proud “B+,” the

hardest “B+” I ever had to work for. From

my experience with my first of many col-

lege-level English classes, I learned a lot,

both academically and outside of the class-

room. I learned much about writing and

rhetoric. But more importantly, I learned

two essential things: nothing comes easy

and learning the material is far more

important than the grades I received.

The classroom is not the only place

where learning takes place. I have learned

so much from the relationships I have

made. I have made incredible bonds with

the amazing people I met this year. From

each and every person, I have learned a

different thing, whether it is something

from their religion or culture or the way

in which they view and live their life. I

feel that chance has brought me here to

learn from them, and I must take it for

what it is, being incredibly lucky to have

such pleasure to broaden myself and my

personal views and knowledge.

The experiences and memories are

priceless. There is nothing I could ask for in

exchange for the things I have both learned

and been through here at Maryland. My

advice to the incoming class of 2010 is to

make lasting memories. Take chances. Be

careful. Work hard. Learn in class and out

of class. Open your mind. Take what comes

at you for what it is. And most importantly,

live the life you have been given. ■

First-Year Reflections

By Carol Sun, student, University of Maryland, College Park

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with thequality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberaleducation. Its members are committed to extending the advan-tages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of aca-demic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915,AAC&U now comprises more than 1,000 accredited publicand private colleges and universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging linksamong presidents, administrators, and faculty members who areengaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is toreinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at boththe national and local levels and to help individual institutionskeep the quality of student learning at the core of their work asthey evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs, andpublications can be found at www.aacu.org.

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